Flying Girl and the Stormy Skies, or Here Comes the Sun, It's All Right

Flying Girl and the Stormy Skies, or Here Comes the Sun, It's All Right
2/12/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper 5x7"

It's hard to know where inspiration comes from. Yesterday, I was glancing through my photo files and saw a picture of cloudy skies over roofs and immediately got an idea. I thought a Flying Girl in a yellow sundress, looking like she was lit up by the sun would be just right.

Maybe the idea of a muse has its place. Leah was talking about muses and daemons over here.
And I can see the attraction to the concept, but I'm not really sure I buy it. It kind of takes away our own agency to say, "twasn't me, twas my muse." Do we have power over our own creativity? I think we do. I think by showing up to the work, we open the door to whatever inspiration, or, fine, muse might come.

But I also like to think that the higher power that is a muse is actually inside of us. It doesn't mean we're better than anyone else, because we are all part of that power, everyone of us. But it might mean that we're better at listening to that higher voice than other folks. By "us" I mean artists and other creative folk. And anyone can learn to listen. Yay, human nature and creative spirit!

I like to think that maybe we set up hospitable circumstances within us that allow the muse/higher spirit/inspiration to come together and become something new. Just like the birth of a baby our insides are the home to our art until we labor to get it out. To say it in a less romantic metaphor, the same could be said about poop.

Oh. Have I said too much? Just think about it, though. We put things into our bodies, like food and drink and drugs and really whatever we take in, good or ill, and then those things are processed within us, and come out the other end. Sometimes easily and regularly, sometimes uncontrollably, sometimes painfully and with difficulty, and sometimes we get completely backed up. The same could be said of art, but it wouldn't be food and drink we take in, but ideas, visuals, literature, music, conversations, walks through the woods, sunsets, or anything, really, any experience. And then, according to our own personal process and personal creation/expulsion, well... out comes the product. ta dah!

This is not where I was planning to take this post. Oops.

Anyway, this particular piece, I think it was influenced by a collective consciousness, a zeitgeist, as well as my own personal experiences lately. We, all of us, it seems, have been through some difficult times, a long hard winter, financial duress... but I truly believe Spring will come, in fact, is already coming even when it is the coldest. Just take a look at the swelling buds on the branches... proof that indeed, we do not need to be afraid that winter will last forever. Spring always comes.

Me myself, I've managed to stay positive even when things are difficult. It helps that I don't really want much, (except, you know, the world) and that I have my creativity to draw on for strength. Since I decided yesterday that I needed to stop asking such big things of myself when I was in a small place, I have felt a lightening of my tension. The whole world seems softer now. I still have a bit of agita, but it is nowhere near the spinning round in circles of before.

And while I was painting this picture, I kept singing to myself, "here comes the sun, la di dah dah, here comes the sun, and I say, it's all right..."

I like this mantra.